First Relic Knight Session: Cerci vs Corsairs 35 pts

Had my first Relic Knights game last Sunday. We played 35 points because that was the amount of painted models that we have for both sides. In a nutshell, the game can overwhelm you with options. Since the game play area is only 3′ x 3′, which is roughly half of a typical table, the other half is where you’ll line up your cards and dashboard, so you will take the entire long table if you play this game.

The game is played in alternate unit complete turns. Each turn you’ll move 1 unit to the active state, make an initial move, perform 1 action and make a final follow up move. And that’s it. The unit queue system makes sure that you won’t activate the same model consecutively every single turn.

It’s really hard to give a battle report on a turn by turn basis, since it’s done unit by unit. But here are the highlights that I manage to remember:

Cerci blazed first by going after the Corsair’s Primary Objective and managed to bring it to 1/3 of its total health using Malya. But by then Kate stepped in and pummelled the Princess down halfway through. Malya kept taking damage to keep her hand to complete Lap Time but didn’t make it.

Kate was a melee monster. With a big 14 inch threat range and the fact that her ultimate melee move does not allow the target to do a guard action, Even though Malya managed to heal a bit she was forcefully brought down to 5 hp left. She got hit by that ultimate melee. Ouch.

Mr. Tomn was happily stealing Kate’s held esper for almost the entire game, which helped bring the damage counter down a bit. But he didn’t have the chance to transfer the delicious espers to another model.

Rin Farrah was useless. All she did was put down the auto shot AoE and practically dodged and ran the entire game.

The Blowhards tried to complete their faction objective, but failed after the primary objective blew up (Cerci scored 5 at this point). But they were in a unique position to threaten both Rin and Malya with enough damage to kill either model, thus draining Cerci’s card options and held espers.

Squall is very economical in dealing decent damage with few cards expended. Most of her activations were spent putting Malya on the spot.

The Pacer and Malya made a final dash in the last few turns, scoring the secondary objective and winning the game by scoring the remaining 3 points.

Result: Cerci: 8, Corsairs: 0

Final thoughts: Not really what we were expecting before we started the game. The concept of cover was not given emphasis simply because of the card mechanics used. So models were used to block movement lanes in broad daylight instead of applying shooting from cover pressures like other games. We also discovered that each faction has their own special thing and fully relying on those strengths is the key to win games, as well as keeping a straight focus on completing objectives.

But it’s a fresh take on miniature gaming. There are no set long term strategies that you can follow before the game starts, unlike some other miniature games. One could say that the entire game felt reactive and a lot of what you need to do had to be strategized and conceived right there and then. The feel of the game felt very anime-ish to me, which was what they wanted I guess. It’s a good thing, but it might leave experienced miniature gamers feeling a bit disjointed for needing to do what is normally a bad thing in other games.

I think we’re preparing for a 50 point skirmish next, which for me will use most of the models I own, plus a boost or two, which is fine.